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Dessert

To Make Molasses Caistdy

A sweet cake made from molasses, brown sugar, lemon juice, and optional nuts, baked in a buttered tin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Make Molasses Caistdy

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the molasses

  1. Combine the molasses and brown sugar in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture until it crisps when cold, being careful not to burn it.

  3. When nearly done, add the lemon juice and stir.

Set and pull

  1. Pour the mixture onto a buttered tin.

  2. If using nut meats, add them while the mixture is warm.

  3. Take some of the mixture out of the pan and pull it with your hands until it turns light in color.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

West-india molasses
Provides the dark color, deep flavor and most of the sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and, once boiled, helps the mixture set firm and crisp.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps keep the sugar from crystallizing.

The step that matters

Boil until it crisps when cold. The texture depends on how far the sugar is concentrated. Too little boiling leaves the mixture sticky, while too much scorches the sugars, making it bitter and dark.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, sugar, butter, meat):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, butter, meat. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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